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STATE:
Naytahwaush man charged for
leaving scene of fatal accident
page 3
NATIONAL:
Bush's father man have
robbed Geronimo's grave
page 5
FAMILY PAGE:
Woman likes being called
tribal chairman
page 9
The
Ojibwe
News
"News by and for the Ojibwe Nation"
Copyright Ojibwe News. 1988
FIFTY CENTS
Founded at Bemidji, Minnesota in 1988
Volume 1 Issue 24
Wednesday, November 2,1988 |
A Weekly Publication
Bemidji, Minnesota 56601
News Briefs
Schedule too
busy for
debates
St. Paul, Minn. (AP) -
Scheduling conflicts would
make it too difficult for
Republican Sen. Dave
Durenberger to agree to
Hubert H. Humphrey Ill's
proposal to stop all TV
advertising and devote the
rest of the campaign to
debates, the Durenberger
campaign says.
"While we cannot cancel
the senator's schedule and
agree to 27 debates
requested in your proposal,
I do reaffirm the senator's
commitment to run a
positive campaign and
would ask that the attorney
general do the same,"
Leon Oistad, Duren-
berger's campaign manager, said Friday in a letter
rejecting the proposal by
Humphrey, Durenberger's
DFL challenger for the
Senate.
Kinkel did not
violate
Minnesota law
Park Rapids, Minn. (AP)
- State Rep. Anthony
Kinkel did not violate Minnesota law when he mentioned a possible judicial
vacancy to lawyers in a
fund-raising letter, according to Hubbard County
Attorney Gregory Larson.
Independent-Republicans
had accused tne Park
Rapids DFLer of trying to
shake down lawyers in an
August letter asking for
contributions and mentioning a possible judicial
vacancy.
Kinkel's IR opponent,
Alan Gunsbury of Brainerd,
had asked for an investigation.
Larson said in a letter to
Gunsbury that there was
no violation of a fair
campaign practices law,
which prohibits the promise of appointments or employment to promote a
candidacy.
1986 spending at Leech
Lake questioned by OIG
Lynn Beaulieu as the witch and Ron Bellanger, Jr. as Freddie were among about a dozen who dressed up for
Saturday's bingo in White Earth. Those wearing costumes were given bingo passes. Photo by Jame Johnson
Study: evergreen forests
retreating northward
By William J. Lawrence
Publisher
The Ojibwe News
recently obtained a copy of
the fiscal year 1986 Single
Audit Act report for the
Leech Lake reservation
firepared by the Office of
nspector General of U.S.
Department of the Interior.
The reported, dated Aug.
25, 1988, questions
$156,871 of federal program
spending during the 1986
fiscal year.
The questioned costs
were for tribal payments for
worker's compensation
($79,818) and general
liability ($59,268) to
non-regulated insurance
companies and a self-
insurance program.
Other questioned costs
were for unemployment taxes
($12,297) and travel ($5,494).
The information obtained by
the News contained financial
statements and an auditor's
report dated Sept. 30, 1986,
prepared for the tribe by Miller,
McDonald, Erickson and
Molier, Ltd., a Bemidji
accounting firm.
The audit firm declined to
give an opinion in the audit
ecause tne tribe declined to
"present a statement of
revenues, expenditures and
changes in fund balances--
budget and actual for the
special revenue fund for the,
year ending Sept. 30, 1986."
Presentation of such a statement is required by generally
accepted accounting principles.
According to a letter to the
Minneapolis Area Office of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, from
Delbert J. Fickas, OIG, the
BIA has until Nov. 22, 1988 to
resolve questioned costs with
the tribe.
Minneapolis, Minn. (AP) -
The spruce, cedar, jackpine
and other cold-weather evergreens that are so plentiful in
northern Minnesota could be
dying out due to climatic
changes because of the
greenhouse effect, according
to a study by environmental
scientists.
The study by scientists with
the University of California at
Santa Barbara predicts that
between 2010 and 2040, the
evergreens of the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area will begin
to die and be replaced by
northern hardwoods such as
sugar maple, yellow birch, red
oak and cherry trees.
The change in the nature of
the forests could be
significant and observable by
2010 and isn't restricted to the
Boundary Waters, said Daniel
Botkin, a professor of biological and environmental
studies who helped conduct
the study.
"Outside (of the park) is a
commercial logging area. The
boreal (northern) forest
produces wood good for pulp
and paper. The hardwoods are
for making furniture, and it's a
completely different industry,"
said Botkin.
The study is preliminary,
Botkin cautioned, saying that
much more information needs
to be gathered.
The study was based on
matching 30 years of weather
data from Virginia Minn., with
a computerized weather
model created by the National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration that predicts a
doubling of carbon dioxide,
the major gas involved in the
greenhouse effect, in 100
years. The model's estimate
of carbon dioxide is
conservative. Many scientists
believe that the amount of
carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere will double in
about 50 years.
An increase of just two
degrees Fahrenheit in the
average global temperature
could put the southern
boundary of the the evergreen
forests more than 60 miles
north, out of much of the
Boundary Waters area Botkin
said. Some models, he said,
predict a six to 12-degree rise
within 100 years.
The retreat of the evergreen
forest could happen muoh
faster than the advance of the
hardwood forest, leaving a
long period in which there is
no substantial forest in the
wilderness area
.'Peter C i b o r o w s k i, a
lesearch fellow and specialist
on the greenhouse effect at
the University of Minnesota's
Humphrey Institute of Public
Affairs, discussed Botkin's
study during an environmental
forum at the University of
Minnesota's St. Paul campus
Wednesday and offered an
even broader portrait of the
ecological impact of a major
climate change.
"The central question is, will
the change be catastrophic
or, if we-intervene now can we
hold it to a livable level?" said
Ciborowski.
The greenhouse effect is
damaging because it warms
the planet much more rapidly
than the ecosystem can
accommodate. "You're collapsing about one million years of
(natural) climate change into
about 50 years," Ciborowski
said.
The warming is the result of
the atmospheric buildup of
gases such as carbon dioxide,
nitrous oxide and methane.
They allow heat from the sun
to reach the surface of the
planet, but then trap it in the
atmosphere when the Earth
tries to return it to space.
The Earth's mean average
annual temperature has
increased about one degree
Fahrenheit in the past century.
Dealing with the greenhouse
effect is so difficult because
the pollutants that cause it are
tied to energy production and
modern industrial processes
that cannot be stopped easily
or quickly.
"II ve worked on this problem
for seven or eight years and
I'm still trying to deal with the
overwhelming scope of it,"
Ciborowski said.
"It would take 20 years to
get a consensus (to attack the
problem seriously)," he said.
Jt would take 50 years to
constrain emissions (of the
gases)." In the meantime, he
said, if we continue with business as usual, every additional 15 years of polluting
results in another two-degree
temperature increase.
ro
cause death
of four
Alexandria, Minn. (AP) - A
van-truck collision on an icy
highway killed four people
from a Sauk Centre juvenile
correctional facility and
injured 11 other people.
The van from the Minnesota
Correctional Facility was
carrying 12 youths and two
adult companions to a movie
in Alexandria as a reward for
good behavior when the crash
occurred shortly after 7 p,m.
Thursday on Interstate 94
about one mile east of this
west-central Minnesota
community.
The State Patrol said three
youths and one adult
supervisor were killed in the
crash.
"We're calling in extra staff
to deal with the grief," said
Dale Ulrich, superintendent of
the correctional facility, which
houses nearly 90 teen-agers.
The center is for males and
females between the ages of
12 and 18 who have committed
7th District is expected to be closest U.S. House race
St. Paul, Minn. (AP) - Two
certainties in U.S. House races
in Minnesota in recent years
are evident again in 1988: All
eight incumbents are favored
to win and the contest in the
7th District is the closest race.
"In Congress, it's pretty
tough to unseat an
incumbent," said state DFL
Chair Ruth Esala "It happens;
but it's not an everyday
occurrence."
State Independent-
Republican Chairman Tony
Trimble said it's becoming
increasingly difficult to defeat
incumbent congressmen. He
said that's because of "the
franking privilege and the
amount of money allocated for
each staff that allows the
congressmen probably the
equivalent of a half million
dollars. That, plus the name
ID, is such a burden (for a
challenger to overcome)."
Incumbents also have a
fund-raising advantage
because contributions from
national political action
committees tend to go to
those who already hold office.
Excluding 1982, when
reapportionment was a major
factor in the defeat of two
Independent-Republican
House members, the last time
an incumbent congressman
was defeated in Minnesota
was in 1970 when DFLer Bob
Bergland upset six-term
Republican Odin Langen in the
7th District.
Bergland held the seat until
he resigned to become U.S.
secretary of agriculture in the
Carter administration.
Republican Arlan Stangeland
won a special election in 1977
and has held the seat since.
Stangeland has won four
close re-election races,
including a 121-vote squeaker
in 1986 in the 23-county area
that stretches from the
Canadian border across the
northwestern part of the state
into central Minnesota
DFL leaders say the 7th
District again represents their
best chance of unseating a
Republican. Former state Sen.
Marv Hanson of Hallock, a
farmer and lawyer, is running
against Stangeland this year.
"That's a race that always
seems to slip through our
hands in the last days of the
campaign," said Esala, "We're
going to get it right one of
these times and we feel pretty
confident about this year."
Hanson, 44, said, "The
overall thrust of the campaign
is who is best able to lead the
7th District into the future."
He said a minority member of
Congress cannot be as
effective as he would be as a
member of the expected
Democratic majority.
"It's 50-50, with the
'undecideds' going to determine which way it comes out,"
Hanson said.
But Stangeland, 58, said his
own polls show that he is
ahead and he expects to win
again.
"I think the issue in this
campaign is leadership and
effectiveness in a better
tomorrow," he said. "I've got
12 years experience."
Hanson said he expects to
spend between $225,000 and
$250,000, while Joe Weber,
Stangeland's campaign
manager, said the iR lawmaker would spend $650,000
to $700,000.
Stangeland spent $218,880
through Oct. 15 and had a
cash balance of $171,169.
Hanson spent $126,399
through the same period and
had a cash balance of $13,619.
In Minnesota, the eight
incumbents have outspent
their challengers by an
average of more than 2-1,
according to the latest
Federal Election Commission
spending reports filed with the
secretary of state's office.
That doesn't include figures
from two IR challengers,
Raymond Gilbertson in the 5th
District and Jerry Shuster in
the 8th District, who
apparently have not raised or
spent $5,000, the level which
requires the filing of spending
reports.
The fiscal disparity between
incumbents and challengers is
far more pronounced when
debts and cash on hand are
taken into account.
The eight incumbents had
an average cash balance of
about $247,000 heading into
the final weeks of the campaign, ranging from $147,191
held by DFL Rep. Bruce Vento
of the 4th District to the
$408,292 bank balance of IR
Rep. Bill Frenzel of the 3rd
District.
Only two of the incumbents,
IR Rep. Vin Weber of the 2nd
District and DFL Rep. Gerry
Sikorski of the 6th District,
listed any debt, and their
combined total was only about
$10,000. By contrast, the six
challengers who filed spending
reports - three DFLers and
three Republicans - had an
average debt of approximately
$20,000 and an average casn
balance of about $7,000. „
The only race where
spending has been even is in
the 1st District, where IR
challenger Curt Schrimpf of
Goodhue, a 32-year-old dairy
farmer, had spent $68,105 and
DFL incumbent Tim Penny
had spent $66,868.
But Penny, 36, who was first
elected in 1982 to end 90
years of Republican domination of the southeastern
Minnesota district, had a cash
balance of $208,047 and no
debts heading into the
stretch, while Schrimpf
showed a balance of $446 and
a debt of $16,776.
Craig Wonts of Austin is the
Socialist Workers Party in the
1st District.
If Republicans unseat a
Democratic incumbent this
fall, Trimble said, it's likely to
be in the 6th District where
the GOP candidate, Ray
Ploetz, 59, a Delano lawyer, is
running against three-term
DFL Rep. Gerry Sikorski.
Sikorski, 40, who was first
elected in 1982, has a huge
financial advantage with a
cash balance of $283,011
compared to $4,386 for
Ploetz.
Trimble says Sikorski has
been hurt by allegations that
he misused his congressional
staff. IR Chairwoman Barb
Sykora has filed a formal
complaint with a House
committee alleging that
Sikorski utilized government-
paid employees for personal
services and used government
paid congressional staff for
campaign purposes. Sikorski
has denied the charges.
Another challenger who is
considered a long shot is
DFLer Doug Peterson, 39, a
Madison farmer and
auctioneer, in the 2nd District
of southwestern Minnesota. IR
Rep. Vin Weber, 36, is
completing his fourth term.
Weber, who set a state
spending record of $909,607
for a House seat in 1986, has
spent $284,433 and has a
cash balance of $296,918.
Peterson has spent $82,818
and has a bank balance of
$17,380. Four districts, three
held by DFLers and one held
by a Republican, are generally
considered "safe" for the
incumbents.
Here's a summary of those
races:
-3rd District: Frenzel, 60, the
dean of the state's congres
sional delegation and a
member of the powerful Ways
and Means Committee, is
seeking a 10th term against
25-year-old DFL challenger
Dave Carlson of Eagan in the
suburban Minneapolis district.
-4th District: Vento, 47, is
seeking a seventh term
against IR challenger Ian
Maitland, 44, of St. Paul, a
business management professor on leave from the
University of Minnesota. The
district includes St. Paul and a
few suburbs and has been held
by DFLers since 1948. Natasha
Terlexis of St. Paul has filed
on the Socialist Workers Party
ticket
-5th District: DFL Rep. Martin
Sabo, 50, is going after a sixth
term in a district which
includes Minneapolis and
several suburbs and has been
held by DFLers since 1962.
Gilbertson, 46, a sales
representative who has retired
from the U.S. Marine Corps, is
the IR candidate. T. Christopher Wright of Minneapolis
has filed as the Grass Roots
Party candidate.
-8th District: DFL Rep. James
Oberstar, 53, was first elected
to the House in 1974 from the
northeastern Minnesota seat
which has been held by
DFLers since 1946. Schuster,
38, is a logging contractor
from Gheen.
)

STATE:
Naytahwaush man charged for
leaving scene of fatal accident
page 3
NATIONAL:
Bush's father man have
robbed Geronimo's grave
page 5
FAMILY PAGE:
Woman likes being called
tribal chairman
page 9
The
Ojibwe
News
"News by and for the Ojibwe Nation"
Copyright Ojibwe News. 1988
FIFTY CENTS
Founded at Bemidji, Minnesota in 1988
Volume 1 Issue 24
Wednesday, November 2,1988 |
A Weekly Publication
Bemidji, Minnesota 56601
News Briefs
Schedule too
busy for
debates
St. Paul, Minn. (AP) -
Scheduling conflicts would
make it too difficult for
Republican Sen. Dave
Durenberger to agree to
Hubert H. Humphrey Ill's
proposal to stop all TV
advertising and devote the
rest of the campaign to
debates, the Durenberger
campaign says.
"While we cannot cancel
the senator's schedule and
agree to 27 debates
requested in your proposal,
I do reaffirm the senator's
commitment to run a
positive campaign and
would ask that the attorney
general do the same,"
Leon Oistad, Duren-
berger's campaign manager, said Friday in a letter
rejecting the proposal by
Humphrey, Durenberger's
DFL challenger for the
Senate.
Kinkel did not
violate
Minnesota law
Park Rapids, Minn. (AP)
- State Rep. Anthony
Kinkel did not violate Minnesota law when he mentioned a possible judicial
vacancy to lawyers in a
fund-raising letter, according to Hubbard County
Attorney Gregory Larson.
Independent-Republicans
had accused tne Park
Rapids DFLer of trying to
shake down lawyers in an
August letter asking for
contributions and mentioning a possible judicial
vacancy.
Kinkel's IR opponent,
Alan Gunsbury of Brainerd,
had asked for an investigation.
Larson said in a letter to
Gunsbury that there was
no violation of a fair
campaign practices law,
which prohibits the promise of appointments or employment to promote a
candidacy.
1986 spending at Leech
Lake questioned by OIG
Lynn Beaulieu as the witch and Ron Bellanger, Jr. as Freddie were among about a dozen who dressed up for
Saturday's bingo in White Earth. Those wearing costumes were given bingo passes. Photo by Jame Johnson
Study: evergreen forests
retreating northward
By William J. Lawrence
Publisher
The Ojibwe News
recently obtained a copy of
the fiscal year 1986 Single
Audit Act report for the
Leech Lake reservation
firepared by the Office of
nspector General of U.S.
Department of the Interior.
The reported, dated Aug.
25, 1988, questions
$156,871 of federal program
spending during the 1986
fiscal year.
The questioned costs
were for tribal payments for
worker's compensation
($79,818) and general
liability ($59,268) to
non-regulated insurance
companies and a self-
insurance program.
Other questioned costs
were for unemployment taxes
($12,297) and travel ($5,494).
The information obtained by
the News contained financial
statements and an auditor's
report dated Sept. 30, 1986,
prepared for the tribe by Miller,
McDonald, Erickson and
Molier, Ltd., a Bemidji
accounting firm.
The audit firm declined to
give an opinion in the audit
ecause tne tribe declined to
"present a statement of
revenues, expenditures and
changes in fund balances--
budget and actual for the
special revenue fund for the,
year ending Sept. 30, 1986."
Presentation of such a statement is required by generally
accepted accounting principles.
According to a letter to the
Minneapolis Area Office of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, from
Delbert J. Fickas, OIG, the
BIA has until Nov. 22, 1988 to
resolve questioned costs with
the tribe.
Minneapolis, Minn. (AP) -
The spruce, cedar, jackpine
and other cold-weather evergreens that are so plentiful in
northern Minnesota could be
dying out due to climatic
changes because of the
greenhouse effect, according
to a study by environmental
scientists.
The study by scientists with
the University of California at
Santa Barbara predicts that
between 2010 and 2040, the
evergreens of the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area will begin
to die and be replaced by
northern hardwoods such as
sugar maple, yellow birch, red
oak and cherry trees.
The change in the nature of
the forests could be
significant and observable by
2010 and isn't restricted to the
Boundary Waters, said Daniel
Botkin, a professor of biological and environmental
studies who helped conduct
the study.
"Outside (of the park) is a
commercial logging area. The
boreal (northern) forest
produces wood good for pulp
and paper. The hardwoods are
for making furniture, and it's a
completely different industry,"
said Botkin.
The study is preliminary,
Botkin cautioned, saying that
much more information needs
to be gathered.
The study was based on
matching 30 years of weather
data from Virginia Minn., with
a computerized weather
model created by the National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration that predicts a
doubling of carbon dioxide,
the major gas involved in the
greenhouse effect, in 100
years. The model's estimate
of carbon dioxide is
conservative. Many scientists
believe that the amount of
carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere will double in
about 50 years.
An increase of just two
degrees Fahrenheit in the
average global temperature
could put the southern
boundary of the the evergreen
forests more than 60 miles
north, out of much of the
Boundary Waters area Botkin
said. Some models, he said,
predict a six to 12-degree rise
within 100 years.
The retreat of the evergreen
forest could happen muoh
faster than the advance of the
hardwood forest, leaving a
long period in which there is
no substantial forest in the
wilderness area
.'Peter C i b o r o w s k i, a
lesearch fellow and specialist
on the greenhouse effect at
the University of Minnesota's
Humphrey Institute of Public
Affairs, discussed Botkin's
study during an environmental
forum at the University of
Minnesota's St. Paul campus
Wednesday and offered an
even broader portrait of the
ecological impact of a major
climate change.
"The central question is, will
the change be catastrophic
or, if we-intervene now can we
hold it to a livable level?" said
Ciborowski.
The greenhouse effect is
damaging because it warms
the planet much more rapidly
than the ecosystem can
accommodate. "You're collapsing about one million years of
(natural) climate change into
about 50 years," Ciborowski
said.
The warming is the result of
the atmospheric buildup of
gases such as carbon dioxide,
nitrous oxide and methane.
They allow heat from the sun
to reach the surface of the
planet, but then trap it in the
atmosphere when the Earth
tries to return it to space.
The Earth's mean average
annual temperature has
increased about one degree
Fahrenheit in the past century.
Dealing with the greenhouse
effect is so difficult because
the pollutants that cause it are
tied to energy production and
modern industrial processes
that cannot be stopped easily
or quickly.
"II ve worked on this problem
for seven or eight years and
I'm still trying to deal with the
overwhelming scope of it,"
Ciborowski said.
"It would take 20 years to
get a consensus (to attack the
problem seriously)," he said.
Jt would take 50 years to
constrain emissions (of the
gases)." In the meantime, he
said, if we continue with business as usual, every additional 15 years of polluting
results in another two-degree
temperature increase.
ro
cause death
of four
Alexandria, Minn. (AP) - A
van-truck collision on an icy
highway killed four people
from a Sauk Centre juvenile
correctional facility and
injured 11 other people.
The van from the Minnesota
Correctional Facility was
carrying 12 youths and two
adult companions to a movie
in Alexandria as a reward for
good behavior when the crash
occurred shortly after 7 p,m.
Thursday on Interstate 94
about one mile east of this
west-central Minnesota
community.
The State Patrol said three
youths and one adult
supervisor were killed in the
crash.
"We're calling in extra staff
to deal with the grief," said
Dale Ulrich, superintendent of
the correctional facility, which
houses nearly 90 teen-agers.
The center is for males and
females between the ages of
12 and 18 who have committed
7th District is expected to be closest U.S. House race
St. Paul, Minn. (AP) - Two
certainties in U.S. House races
in Minnesota in recent years
are evident again in 1988: All
eight incumbents are favored
to win and the contest in the
7th District is the closest race.
"In Congress, it's pretty
tough to unseat an
incumbent," said state DFL
Chair Ruth Esala "It happens;
but it's not an everyday
occurrence."
State Independent-
Republican Chairman Tony
Trimble said it's becoming
increasingly difficult to defeat
incumbent congressmen. He
said that's because of "the
franking privilege and the
amount of money allocated for
each staff that allows the
congressmen probably the
equivalent of a half million
dollars. That, plus the name
ID, is such a burden (for a
challenger to overcome)."
Incumbents also have a
fund-raising advantage
because contributions from
national political action
committees tend to go to
those who already hold office.
Excluding 1982, when
reapportionment was a major
factor in the defeat of two
Independent-Republican
House members, the last time
an incumbent congressman
was defeated in Minnesota
was in 1970 when DFLer Bob
Bergland upset six-term
Republican Odin Langen in the
7th District.
Bergland held the seat until
he resigned to become U.S.
secretary of agriculture in the
Carter administration.
Republican Arlan Stangeland
won a special election in 1977
and has held the seat since.
Stangeland has won four
close re-election races,
including a 121-vote squeaker
in 1986 in the 23-county area
that stretches from the
Canadian border across the
northwestern part of the state
into central Minnesota
DFL leaders say the 7th
District again represents their
best chance of unseating a
Republican. Former state Sen.
Marv Hanson of Hallock, a
farmer and lawyer, is running
against Stangeland this year.
"That's a race that always
seems to slip through our
hands in the last days of the
campaign," said Esala, "We're
going to get it right one of
these times and we feel pretty
confident about this year."
Hanson, 44, said, "The
overall thrust of the campaign
is who is best able to lead the
7th District into the future."
He said a minority member of
Congress cannot be as
effective as he would be as a
member of the expected
Democratic majority.
"It's 50-50, with the
'undecideds' going to determine which way it comes out,"
Hanson said.
But Stangeland, 58, said his
own polls show that he is
ahead and he expects to win
again.
"I think the issue in this
campaign is leadership and
effectiveness in a better
tomorrow," he said. "I've got
12 years experience."
Hanson said he expects to
spend between $225,000 and
$250,000, while Joe Weber,
Stangeland's campaign
manager, said the iR lawmaker would spend $650,000
to $700,000.
Stangeland spent $218,880
through Oct. 15 and had a
cash balance of $171,169.
Hanson spent $126,399
through the same period and
had a cash balance of $13,619.
In Minnesota, the eight
incumbents have outspent
their challengers by an
average of more than 2-1,
according to the latest
Federal Election Commission
spending reports filed with the
secretary of state's office.
That doesn't include figures
from two IR challengers,
Raymond Gilbertson in the 5th
District and Jerry Shuster in
the 8th District, who
apparently have not raised or
spent $5,000, the level which
requires the filing of spending
reports.
The fiscal disparity between
incumbents and challengers is
far more pronounced when
debts and cash on hand are
taken into account.
The eight incumbents had
an average cash balance of
about $247,000 heading into
the final weeks of the campaign, ranging from $147,191
held by DFL Rep. Bruce Vento
of the 4th District to the
$408,292 bank balance of IR
Rep. Bill Frenzel of the 3rd
District.
Only two of the incumbents,
IR Rep. Vin Weber of the 2nd
District and DFL Rep. Gerry
Sikorski of the 6th District,
listed any debt, and their
combined total was only about
$10,000. By contrast, the six
challengers who filed spending
reports - three DFLers and
three Republicans - had an
average debt of approximately
$20,000 and an average casn
balance of about $7,000. „
The only race where
spending has been even is in
the 1st District, where IR
challenger Curt Schrimpf of
Goodhue, a 32-year-old dairy
farmer, had spent $68,105 and
DFL incumbent Tim Penny
had spent $66,868.
But Penny, 36, who was first
elected in 1982 to end 90
years of Republican domination of the southeastern
Minnesota district, had a cash
balance of $208,047 and no
debts heading into the
stretch, while Schrimpf
showed a balance of $446 and
a debt of $16,776.
Craig Wonts of Austin is the
Socialist Workers Party in the
1st District.
If Republicans unseat a
Democratic incumbent this
fall, Trimble said, it's likely to
be in the 6th District where
the GOP candidate, Ray
Ploetz, 59, a Delano lawyer, is
running against three-term
DFL Rep. Gerry Sikorski.
Sikorski, 40, who was first
elected in 1982, has a huge
financial advantage with a
cash balance of $283,011
compared to $4,386 for
Ploetz.
Trimble says Sikorski has
been hurt by allegations that
he misused his congressional
staff. IR Chairwoman Barb
Sykora has filed a formal
complaint with a House
committee alleging that
Sikorski utilized government-
paid employees for personal
services and used government
paid congressional staff for
campaign purposes. Sikorski
has denied the charges.
Another challenger who is
considered a long shot is
DFLer Doug Peterson, 39, a
Madison farmer and
auctioneer, in the 2nd District
of southwestern Minnesota. IR
Rep. Vin Weber, 36, is
completing his fourth term.
Weber, who set a state
spending record of $909,607
for a House seat in 1986, has
spent $284,433 and has a
cash balance of $296,918.
Peterson has spent $82,818
and has a bank balance of
$17,380. Four districts, three
held by DFLers and one held
by a Republican, are generally
considered "safe" for the
incumbents.
Here's a summary of those
races:
-3rd District: Frenzel, 60, the
dean of the state's congres
sional delegation and a
member of the powerful Ways
and Means Committee, is
seeking a 10th term against
25-year-old DFL challenger
Dave Carlson of Eagan in the
suburban Minneapolis district.
-4th District: Vento, 47, is
seeking a seventh term
against IR challenger Ian
Maitland, 44, of St. Paul, a
business management professor on leave from the
University of Minnesota. The
district includes St. Paul and a
few suburbs and has been held
by DFLers since 1948. Natasha
Terlexis of St. Paul has filed
on the Socialist Workers Party
ticket
-5th District: DFL Rep. Martin
Sabo, 50, is going after a sixth
term in a district which
includes Minneapolis and
several suburbs and has been
held by DFLers since 1962.
Gilbertson, 46, a sales
representative who has retired
from the U.S. Marine Corps, is
the IR candidate. T. Christopher Wright of Minneapolis
has filed as the Grass Roots
Party candidate.
-8th District: DFL Rep. James
Oberstar, 53, was first elected
to the House in 1974 from the
northeastern Minnesota seat
which has been held by
DFLers since 1946. Schuster,
38, is a logging contractor
from Gheen.
)